“We discovered that it was OK to have a little high-brow as long you have a lot of low-brow. That’s entertainment value. The one thing you want to avoid is the middle brow, because the whole world is frigging middle brow at the moment.”
– Jon Langford

Thursday, August 07, 2008

The Song Remains Profane

Fittingly it's 45 years ago this Friday that an obscure group from Portland, Oregon released a single that changed the way drunken frat boys would mangle lyrics forever--yes, the version of "Louie Louie" we know best. But maybe more than the lyrics, which are about a sailor but far from salacious, the Kingsmen gave us the classic dum-dum, dum-dum-dum riff that turned out to be pretty smart (and the heart of a gazillion other rock songs, from "Wild Thing" to Alex Chilton's "No Sex," in which he cleverly does make the song obscene with its AID-era chorus of "come on baby, fuck me and die" refrain). Still, parents managed to get worked into a lather by that rock n roll thing and soon the FBI investigated. Their crack team discovered the lyrics were co-written by Richard Jewell and Bruce Ivins. The various obscene versions of the tune were passed about schoolrooms and the song was even banned in Indiana, but it turns out the lyrics they confiscated from a school there were penned by a young Dan Quayle, and merely spelled atrociously. There are all kinds of obscenity, after all.

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About Me

George markets only for the forces of good for a living. He has a paid hobby that involves eating, drinking, and writing, things he’d do for free, which is almost what he’s doing it for. In a previous life he taught mostly illiterate and generally ungrateful college students how to write. He has been a body guard for Jodie Foster, a walk-on dancer with French avant garde troupe Maguy Marin, a film programmer, a judge at an Iron Chef style competition, a political activist, a textbook author, a bassist in a band, a two-time league winning fantasy baseball manager, a union local president, a pr flack helping run a red carpet at an Angelina Jolie event, a janitor, a chauffeur to folks from TC Boyle to Andrei Codrescu, a delivery man to Plato's Retreat, a reluctant writer of a non-snarky intro for Colin Powell, a radio DJ, a corn detassler, an escort van driver, a rock journalist, a lab assistant for a company that made everything from mouthwash to super skin lubricant, and even, once, a poet. His biggest brush with fame was when Julie Christie fondled his tie, a tie George Lopez belittled to 1000 people minutes later. The best thing about him is his wife. His dogs aren't bad, either.